Enterprise Servlets and J2EE

This excerpt is Chapter 12 from Java Servlet Programming, 2nd Edition, published in April 2001 by O'Reilly.

This chapter discusses enterprise servlets. The term enterprise is used all the time with Java these days, but what does it mean? According to my trusty and beat-up copy of The American Heritage Dictionary (so old it's priced at $1.95) the word enterprise has three definitions:

1. An undertaking, esp. one of some scope and risk

2. A business

3. Readiness to venture; initiative

It's a surprisingly close definition to what people mean when they say enterprise Java and enterprise servlets. We can merge the traditional definitions to create a modern definition:

1. Readiness to support a business undertaking of large scope

In other words, enterprise servlets are servlets designed to support business-oriented large-scale web sites -- high-traffic, high-reliability sites that have extra demands for scalability, load balancing, failover support, and integration with other Java 2, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) technologies.

As servlets have become increasingly popular and robust, and as servlet containers have become more solid and featureful, a growing number of enterprise sites are being built using servlets. Writing servlets for these sites differs from writing servlets for traditional sites, and in this chapter we'll discuss the special requirements and abilities of these enterprise servlets.

Distributing Load

How to Be Distributable

Many Styles of Distribution

Integrating with J2EE

J2EE Division of Labor

Environment Entries

References to EJB Components

References to External Resource Factories

Servlet Distribution in a J2EE Environment